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?

Savory slow cooker white bean soup.

“What should I make in the slow cooker?” I asked the fiance.

“Soup.”

He didn’t even look up or hesitate. And he was right. I’ve teased soup out of the old Rival crockpot dozens and dozens of times, from chunky seafood chowders to creamy pumpkin purees, but I haven’t done it in a good, long time.

I realized that I’ve become so enamored of all the unusual and surprising things that can be done with a slow cooker, that I lost my grip on the things it does best. There are two: soup and dried beans. It was high time I did both for Crock Tease, and all in one recipe, to show off the crockpot at its best.

Following on the heels of the previous night’s party , soup sounded like a wonderful hangover cure as well. Steamy broth beats hair of the dog hands down, no matter what anyone tells you. It even slightly beats Water Joe, the brilliant caffeinated water product I once proclaimed the world’s greatest hangover drink. (You know how you can’t decide which you need more, water or coffee, so you alternately guzzle both? Water Joe is both. It has sadly disappeared from the store where I once bought it.)

There are a lot of slow cooker bean recipes that involve opening cans, and that’s okay. Sometimes convenience rules. Do yourself a favor and cook the real deal once in a while, though. The slow cooker does the tough work, it’s cheaper, lower in sodium, and –most importantly– slow cooked beans taste ten times better. Making the soup right in the pot in which the dried beans cook takes advantage of the flavorsome juice that lingers in the crock (known as “bean liquor”).

Top each bowl with a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil, shaved Parmesan and cracked pepper and the soup will look fine Italian restaurant-quality. Eat as a meal, or serve as a sophisticated starter to an Italian dinner.

Slow Cooker Italian Herb White Bean Soup Recipe

1 lb. dried white beans (Great Northern or Cannellini)
6 cups vegetable broth (about 3 cans)
2 cups water
4 cloves garlic, minced
4 green onions, chopped
3/4 cup roasted red peppers, sliced
1 Tbsp fresh thyme (1 tsp dried)
1 Tbsp fresh rosemary (1 tsp dried)
Juice of 1/2 lemon (about 1 Tbsp)
Salt and coarse ground black pepper to taste

For topping: Coarse ground black pepper, olive oil, shaved Parmesan

Directions: Combine ingredients in crock of your slow cooker. Cover and cook on low for 7-8 hours or high for 3½-4 hours. To serve, drizzle a tablespoon of olive oil over each bowl, then top with shaved Parmesan and black pepper to taste.

Tips: Depending on how hot your slow cooker gets (or how many times you sneak a peak and lose moisture), you might need extra liquid to make your soup soupy. Just add extra broth or water as needed –and stop peeking!

Best hangover cure ever. Have you heard? Bean soup is the new Water Joe.

So, I looked into this tagine business, and I’ve changed my mind as well as my spelling.

The tagine, or tajine as it’s called in its native land, is a type of clay cooking pot used in North Africa, specifically in the cuisines of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco. The dome-shaped top is designed to allow condensation to remain in the bottom of the vessel –it can actually be lifted without a potholder during cooking to check on the progress.

The resulting dish is also called a tajine, and the Moroccan versions are slow-simmered combinations of lamb, beef, vegetables, dried fruit, and spices. The unique shape of the cooking vessel allows for the long, slow cooking of inexpensive cuts of meats, resulting in a falling-off-the-bone tenderness.

Lamb Tagine with Quail Eggs (FotoosVanRobin, Creative Commons License)

Sound familiar? All of the best features about the tajine are the same features we love about our slow cookers. That means that Moroccan food and crockpots are a marriage made in food heaven. You don’t have to cook in an actual tajine to have a tajine; you just have to cook slowly and make use of Moroccan ingredients and spices.

This tajine is vegetarian-friendly and has an intoxicating combination of spices. Simmer this in your slow cooker, and you’ll soon find that it’s not just the name tajine that’s exotic. It’s the taste.

Moroccan Spiced Lentil Tagine

Slow Cooker Moroccan Spiced Lentil Tajine Recipe

1 16 oz. bag dried lentils (about 2 1/2 cups)
2 cups vegetable broth
2 cups water
3 carrots, sliced or chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 cups cooked chickpeas (about 1 can)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp fresh grated ginger (1 tsp dried)
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp  coriander
4 cups raw spinach leaves
1/2 cup raisins, pre-soaked to plump (or dried apricots or dates)
Cilantro to garnish

Directions: Combine all ingredients except spinach, raisins and cilantro in the crock of your slow cooker, and stir to combine. Cook on low for 6-7 hours, or high for 3-3 1/2 hours. Stir in spinach about five minutes before serving. (The condensation will steam it perfectly.) Top with raisins and cilantro and serve.

Serve over couscous, which literally cooks in about five minutes, and you have a whole meal. If you’d like to serve a side, consider leaving the spinach out of the tajine and serving a side of steamed fresh greens.

Make it a theme night and watch The Road to Morocco, which is a hoot of a Bob Hope/Bing Crosby movie. On the other hand, The Matrix has about the same amount of Moroccan authenticity. Watch anything: when your food’s authentic, your film doesn’t have to be.

That’s why it doesn’t have to make sense to you that my fiance and I have a 4th of July tradition that includes shepherd’s pie. What started by accident is now something we look forward to every year, and we have the whole rest of the summer for cold beer, barbecue and cookouts.

It’s not a bad way to celebrate independence, anyway. It’s like telling England, “Hey, keep your king; we’ll just take your good stuff”: shepherd’s pie, Earl Grey tea, Double Gloucester cheese.

Shepherd’s pie is possibly one of the most perfect comfort foods on Earth, with macaroni and cheese being a too-close-too-call contender. This slow cooker version makes it even more comforting by taking out all the effort. Just toss in your leftovers and forget it for a few hours.

The potato topping cooks up beautifully when left to its own devices.

I made a batch of savory hot scones to serve with our shepherd’s pie, flecked with turkey bacon, green onions, and lots of black pepper. You can pick up bakery scones to make your English-themed meal trouble-free, and pick up pre-washed arugula for a salad. Score trivia points by telling everyone that arugula is always called “rocket” on UK menus.

A savory batch of scones maintains the Anglophile theme.

Slow Cooker Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie Recipe

12-16 oz vegetarian ground meat crumbles (like Morningstar Farms Sausage-Style)
4 tbsp olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
2 cups mushrooms, chopped
1 cup diced tomatoes, well-drained
1 tsp. dried thyme (1 tbsp fresh)
2 tbsp tomato paste
Fresh ground pepper
4 cups Italian-style green beans, well-drained (or any vegetable)
6 cups cooked mashed potatoes

Directions: Spray the crock of your slow cooker with non-stick spray. Combine first 8 ingredients in a bowl, then spread into the bottom of your slow cooker. Layer vegetables on top of the faux meat mixture, then top with potatoes. Grind extra black pepper on top if desired. Cook on low for 4 hours, or on high for 2 hours.

Tips: In an extra-cheesy mood, when my pie was finished, I added 4 oz of grated sharp cheese and put the entire crock under the broiler for five minutes until bubbly.

Get out your drawstring pants.

No leftover mashed potatoes and no time to prepare them? No problem. Bagged frozen mashed potatoes are surprisingly good too, and you can dress them up with some extra seasonings like rosemary and fresh ground pepper.

Use any vegetables you like. Make sure canned vegetables are well-drained and frozen veggies are pre-thawed so you don’t have excess moisture in your pot. Fresh veggies should be cut into small pieces so they will cook thoroughly. Try matchstick zucchini and yellow squash, or already-tiny fresh corn and green peas.

Feeling carnivorous? Real meat is even more traditional, but be extra-certain that you’ve drained any cooked meat of excess grease and moisture to make it slow cooker-friendly.

I can’t blame you if you file this one away for the Autumn months (and shepherd’s pie is a brilliant way to use up post-Thanksgiving leftovers), but don’t be afraid to try it this summer. The slow cooker keeps your house cool, and comfort food can be just what you need no matter the season.

You just might start a tradition of your own.

That’s an undeserved fate for the zesty Arabic dip, which is just as tasty as hummus, and, thanks to the fact that it’s made mostly of eggplant, much lower in calories. I suspect the reason a baba gaboush recipe isn’t in the repertoire of as many people is simply because it takes longer to prepare.

Roasting an eggplant is a lot to ask of a busy girl compared to, say, throwing chickpeas in a blender and bzzzt-ing it for 45 seconds. Now, thanks to the slow cooker, prepping an eggplant for a baba ganoush dip is a walk in the park with marshmallow shoes on.

I had never tried cooking a whole eggplant in the slow cooker before, so I’m pleased to report that I got it right on the first try. It cooked more thoroughly than I’ve ever experienced with oven-roasting –the eggplant always seemed smooshy in parts and uncooked in others. The crock’s steam allowed for completely even smooshiness.

The result: the best baba ganoush I’ve ever made. No lie.

Baba Ganoush With Slow Cooked Eggplant Recipe

1 whole eggplant
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup sesame tahini
2 tbsp olive oil
Juice of 1 whole lemon (about 2 tbsp)
Salt and pepper to taste
Paprika, parsley, and Greek olives to garnish (optional)

Directions: Slice eggplant in half lengthwise, prick skin with a fork, and place in crock of your slow cooker, skin-side down. Replace lid and cook on high for 2 hours. Let cool. When eggplant is cooled, remove pulp and place into a bowl. Set aside. Place remaining ingredients in a food processor and blend well (you can also mix it thoroughly by hand, but mince the garlic first). Stir the mixture into the eggplant until well combined. Garnish and chill until serving.

Tips:

You’ll often see baba ganoush or eggplant served with additional olive oil on top. I learned from a Lebanese cook that the olive oil is a traditional addition that hearkens back to the days before refrigeration, when the dips would be stored in crockery. The olive oil prevented the food from drying out in the hot Middle Eastern sun. You’ve got a refrigerator, right? Skip the extra oil!

Serve with sliced pita bread, or if you’re in a time crunch, pita chips from a big ol’ bag.

A lot of recipes call for the eggplant to be food processed as well. Resist the temptation. Stirring it by hand ensures a thick, well-textured dip that the pureed version doesn’t hold a candle to.

Baba ganoush is back. Take her out to your next party. She’ll be the one everyone raves about.

Despite appearances, not a crustless quiche. Nuh-uh.

Everybody sing: “You say po-tay-to and I say po-tah-ta. You say strata, and I say frittata.”

Strata? Frittata? Eh, let’s call the whole thing off. Most people just say quiche anyway.

“Crustless Quiche” pops up in a lot of cookbooks and online recipe collections. However, if you take a look at the definitions of traditional egg dishes, you’ll see that the definition of a quiche usually presumes a crust or shell. The frittata, on the other hand, the Italian version of an omelet, is cooked on the stove until nice and puffy, then finished off in the oven and served without being folded over (because that would be an omelet.)

So, though you can call it whatever you like, I say: If you’ve got a round egg dish filled with ingredients, and it doesn’t have a crust, what you’ve got there is a frittata.

If you’ve ever made a quiche, frittata, or any other egg casserole in the oven, then you know how prone they are to drying out. Sometimes in order to get the middle to set, you’re forced to overcook the outside. In the slow cooker, though, the low, even heat keeps the eggs moist and fluffy, like the best scrambled eggs.

Preparing one is easy-peasy. Chop a few odds and ends, whisk some eggs, then let the slow cooker do the work. In fact, if you’re too busy to do the chopping, there are plenty of things you can toss in the crock as is: whole spinach leaves (they’ll soften up just fine) or pre-shredded cheese, for example.

This frittata is a riff on Greek food, and it’s just loaded up with good stuff. Spinach is used so much in quiche-like dishes that I nixed it this go-around in favor of colorful, savory fresh herbs, but by all means, spinach it up if you want.

You can also go nuts and use real cream. I’m a fan of evaporated skim milk, because it is thicker than regular skim, has no fat, and keeps in the cupboard so it’s always on hand. If you noticed I didn’t include salt, that’s because both the olives and the feta have plenty. You won’t miss it.

Slow Cooker Mediterranean Frittata Recipe

1/2 tbp olive oil or non-stick spray
1/4 cup kalamata olives, roughly chopped
1 cup roasted red peppers, well drained and roughly chopped
1 cup feta cheese, crumbled
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tbsp plain yogurt (preferably Greek-style)
1/4 cup evaporated skim milk
9 large eggs
Ground black pepper
1/4 cup fresh basil, roughly chopped (or whole leaves if using small-leaved basil)
1/4 cup flat-leaf Italian parsley, roughly chopped

Directions: Spray or coat slow cooker well with oil. In the bottom of the crock, place the olives, red peppers, feta, and garlic in layers (they will rise during the cooking and distribute themselves equally). In a separate large bowl, combine the yogurt, milk, and pepper, and whisk very well, until good and frothy. Pour egg mixture over the ingredients in the crock, then top with basil and parsley. Cook on high for 1 hour and fifteen minutes, or low for 3 hours. Be sure the center is set.

When center is set, run a knife around the edge of the frittata and slide it out onto a plate. You can also slice the frittata into wedges while it is still in the crock and remove them one by one with a spatula, which takes longer, but ensures it doesn’t fall apart.

The texture of these eggs is dreamy: moist, steamy, and somehow buttery. I served the frittata for dinner with pita bread and a yogurt cucumber raita. For a quicker service, serve with pita bread and a spinach salad-in-a-bag.

Yogurt cucumber raita, loaded with garlic and dill.

On a lazy morning, zip this one into the slow cooker and climb back into bed to awake to a savory brunch that anyone else in the house will think appeared by magic.

And if anyone dares call it a “crustless quiche,” send ‘em to me.

The hearty-yet-decadent Chicken Chasseur

Some of the dishes that have been around the block are classics for a reason, and they continue to impress generation after generation. A case in point is Chicken Chasseur, which may be one of the oldest recipes on record, dating back to the year 1300 when it was recorded in a manuscript along with other general knowledge.

The Medieval version was called “Chicken Hunter Style,” and it called for a freshly roasted hen to be boiled with garlic, broth, wine, lard, and gizzards. Today we (thankfully) hold the lard and the gizzards, opting instead to use butter and herbs for flavor, but we still drool over Chicken Chasseur (chasseur is French for “hunter.”)

Today’s version is an earthy dish with ingredients that still evoke the forest that was the hunter’s domain: fresh poultry, field mushrooms, just-picked herbs. Slowly simmered in wine and garlic, the flavors are primevally rustic, yet decadently French.

To adapt Chicken Chasseur for the slow cooker, I lowered the traditional amount of liquid and slightly upped the flour. Slow cooking keeps in the moisture and doesn’t allow for evaporation, so the reduction of the sauce has to be rigged. Starting with a thicker base means the sauce will have the consistency of a reduction without the hassle of pan-reducing.

Slow Cooker Chicken Chasseur Recipe

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
4 tablespoons butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small red onion, chopped
3/4 cup chicken broth
6 tbsp. white wine or vermouth
1 tbsp. flour
salt and pepper
1 cup diced tomatoes, well drained
1 tbsp. fresh thyme (or 1 tsp. dried)
12 oz fresh mushrooms, sliced

Directions: Melt butter in a large skillet, then add chicken breasts and sear on each side until lightly browned, about five minutes on each side. Remove chicken and set aside. Add garlic and onions to pan and cook for a few minutes, just until softened; turn off heat. In the crock of your slow cooker, whisk together broth, wine, flour, salt, and pepper until well blended. Stir in the contents of the saute pan, including any remaining  butter. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.

Lay the chicken breasts on top of the mixture and cook on low for 2-3 hours or high for 1-1 1/2 hours, until chicken is cooked through. Remove the lid about 20 minutes before serving if you would like to further reduce the sauce.

Tips: If you’re pressed for time, you can add all the ingredients to the pot without searing the chicken or softening the veggies first. You will sacrifice a dab of consistency, and you’ll need to be sure the onions are on the bottom so they’ll cook well.

Guzzled up all the white wine? Use vermouth, which you might be more likely to just have around as a holdover from last month’s martini party.

To make the getting-on-the-table even quicker, serve with rustic bread and a salad-in-a-bag of mixed field greens.

I served my Chicken Chasseur with skin-on, roughly mashed potatoes with fresh sage, to keep the theme provincial. Hunks of bread are in order to sop up the sauce, which is the highlight of the dish. You’ll want to save any leftover mushroom mixture to heat up and serve on toast tomorrow (Perhaps with a smidge of goat cheese? Hmmmmm.)

Just look at that wine-y, buttery juice!